PS minus: no more PS3 or PS Vita games on PS Plus from March 2019

There’s some bad news for those who still enjoy receiving free monthly PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita games on PlayStation Plus: Sony has announced the service will no longer include PS3 and Vita games come March 2019.

The current six-game offering which has been the norm since the launch of the PlayStation 4 was released in November 2013 will see its final month in February 2019. After this, Sony has told Polygon will only include two PS4 games in its monthly lineup and nothing else. 

This cuts the offering by two-thirds and given the recent rise in cost of the service we imagine there will be some dissatisfaction expressed. It may, however, mean that we could see some more high value PS4 games included in the lineup to reduce the sting of the cut.

And then there were two

Fortunately, any PS3 or PS Vita games that you have downloaded via the PS Plus service will remain yours as long as you retain your PS Plus account. Outside of this, it doesn’t appear that the service or its features will change at all.

Other than stating that it intends to “focus on PS4 titles” Sony hasn’t given much explanation as to why it’s dropping these older platform titles. We will, at that point, be five years into the PS4’s lifetime so it may simply be that Sony thinks it time to move forward. 

If analyst predictions are correct, it could be a sign that Sony is gearing up for a late 2019 to early 2020 PlayStation 5 launch. That, of course, is purely conjecture. 

At this point in time, all we know for certain is that come March 2019, the PS Plus free game offering will be greatly reduced.

Emma Boyle

Emma Boyle is TechRadar’s ex-Gaming Editor, and is now a content developer and freelance journalist. She has written for magazines and websites including T3, Stuff and The Independent. Emma currently works as a Content Developer in Edinburgh.